Covid19 Is Here For Years to Come

[ClimbDad]

Today, Sir Jeremy Farrar, a member of Sage, the government advisory body, said the world would be living with Covid-19 for "very many, many years to come".

"Things will not be done by Christmas. This infection is not going away, it's now a human endemic infection.

"Even, actually, if we have a vaccine or very good treatments, humanity will still be living with this virus for very many, many years.... decades to come."

Prof Sir John Bell, of the University of Oxford, said he thought it was unlikely that Covid-19 would ever be eliminated despite the positive news announced on Monday that trials by his university had triggered an immune response - an important step in developing a vaccine.

"The reality is that this pathogen is here forever, it isn't going anywhere," he told MPs.

"Look at how much trouble they've had in eliminating, for example, polio, that eradication programme has been going on for 15 years and they're still not there.

"So this is going to come and go, and we're going to get winters where we get a lot of this virus back in action.“

If these highly respected scientists are right, how will your life change? Do you believe we can go back to normal while the virus is circulating?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53488142

Yes, life will get back to normal. We will get vaccinated for it..like other things.

You know when we go abroad and sometimes need certain vaccines? It'll be like that.

Hardly a surprise, is it. It doesn’t mean the pandemic will be raging or we’ll have this miserable existence forever.

It will take a long time to vaccinate everyone. They aren't going to make enough doses for everyone at once, we will get to keep some and will have to sell some to other countries. People will be vaccinated in order of priority in between normal NHS day to day work, they won't vaccinate the whole country in a week so it will be around for a year or two I would think.

We don’t need to eradicate it, we just need to be able to treat and keep it under control. And I believe those things will happen.

But even some people being vaccinated will slow the spread and make it less likely to rip through the rest of the population surely? As the virus will find it harder to find hosts even with some people vaccinated

Sir John Bell doesn’t believe vaccines will offer long term immunity. It really hasn’t dawned on some people what this means. Read some books about what life was like for societies that had to live with highly transmissible disease. The things we’ve taken for granted, large indoor gatherings, concerts, air travel, cinemas, pubs, large schools - will all pose a risk. Some people will accept that risk. Others won’t. Most businesses can’t survive a significant decline in customers. If this virus becomes endemic it will lead to structural social and economic changes.

I don’t think so ClimbDad. Just because the illness is still in existence doesn’t mean the pandemic will go on forever.

Plenty of scientists have said they believe that we will defeat the virus. Not everyone shares your relentless negativity

Sir John Bell doesn’t believe vaccines will offer long term immunity. It really hasn’t dawned on some people what this means.

Flu vaccines don't offer long term immunity which is why the old and vulnerable get them every year. As someone else said similar to when you go abroad and need vaccinations against certain diseases.

Key is also developing better treatments to reduce hospital/ICU admissions.

@ClimbDad

Sir John Bell doesn’t believe vaccines will offer long term immunity. It really hasn’t dawned on some people what this means. Read some books about what life was like for societies that had to live with highly transmissible disease. The things we’ve taken for granted, large indoor gatherings, concerts, air travel, cinemas, pubs, large schools - will all pose a risk. Some people will accept that risk. Others won’t. Most businesses can’t survive a significant decline in customers. If this virus becomes endemic it will lead to structural social and economic changes.

More likely we will start to look at how transmissible it is (not very), how deadly it is (not very), who is at risk (the very elderly, the demented, the obese), shrug and get on with things. It's hardly up there with the plague, doesn't kill the young or young adults (bar rare exceptions), and is asymptomatic for up to 40% of people Hard to maintain high levels of fear for years in the face of that

I have faith that with a vaccine and good treatments, we will beat this. And if not? Well then we will have to live a risky life. I can deal with that.

I think we will get to a place where we can cope with the wax and wane of infections. Just like flu and pneumonia. Of course it could mutate and be either better to deal with or worse to deal with.
I suspect that there will be permanent changes to society as a result. - fingers crossed for better hygiene, more working from home,

I'm more cautious about the risk of COVID than most people I know, but even I think this is scaremongering. Of course it's going to be here for years to come - there are very few diseases that mankind has eradicated completely. And even if vaccines don't offer long term immunity, it's quite a leap from that to the future you've described. Maybe all it means is an annual vaccine, rather than one-and-done.

Maybe it will; lead to health changes such as people exercising more and focusing more on health? Some changes could be positive. Treatments are already improving. It will probably go on with the other winter flu and cold type viruses.

Patronising follow up posts, my fave

I think it was unclear what he meant eradicate is a big goal and only achieved once but we do live with flu and still allow theatre, sports, schools etc could we get there with covid? With vaccination effectively reducing the risk of death to that which we accept as manageable? I don’t know but he wasn’t pressed on that point.

"Look at how much trouble they've had in eliminating, for example, polio, that eradication programme has been going on for 15 years and they're still not there."

That's a horse of a different colour. There's a huge contrast between the types of health risks we expect people in developing countries to put up with, and what we currently experience in wealthy Western regions. We could eradicate polio relatively easily if we truly put the effort into it; it's just that we don't.

I suspect it’ll be vaccinated against, we’ll have reasonable treatments, the population will no longer be completely naive, we might even invest in a better nhs and then those of us in well off countries with functional healthcare systems will barely notice it. Much like most people barely notice flu now in their day to day lives, even in particularly bad years. Most people who think they won’t tolerate the risk will watch everyone else going out into society again and decide actually they can tolerate it after all, especially once the media stop live blogging it, people find other things to talk about and life moves on. Yes, a higher percentage of people are going to die than we’re used to in our current society and a lot of economic pain will happen enroute to this point. That’s human life, bad stuff happens every so often.

What’s the alternative? “Social distancing” is fine for a while but, for example, the notion no one is going to have sex with anyone ever again unless they’re in their current household or “support bubble” is patently absurd. We might not shake hands, we might have a culture of staying home when ill, we might even have kids wash their hands more in schools, but I don’t see the end of parties, clubs, travel, new relationships etc as being likely or proportionate.

We haven't eradicated measles (which is fairly shameful- we absolutely should have) but our lives are not ruled by it.

I actually find this reassuring; it reads like an acknowledgment that in future Covid will become part of the furniture, something to be cautious of but better understood and mitigated with effective treatment and hopefully vaccination. I don’t see why we have to fully eliminate it in order to return to some kind of normality?

Covid or no Covid I think in all likelihood we’ll return to a recognisable normal sooner than many people expect; the ‘Brave New Normal’ currently being mooted is joyless, unsustainable and entirely unnatural given that humans are a social animal.

A second ridiculous scaremongering thread by the OP I've seen this week. Sterling work.

As I said to you on your other thread - you're welcome to self isolate for the next 40 years in a sterilised cage, but the rest of us would like to carry on with our lives, even if they do have to adjust slightly whilst we wait for a vaccine.

Jeez what a depressing thread we live with many virus etc of course it won't go but we can learn to live with it

I heard an expert interviewed on PM on Radio 4 who was saying much the same thing. I don’t know if this is the same interview that people are referring to? The interviewer (Evan Davis?) was asking when life would return to normal and they were basically saying that that it would be a long time before we return to normal, maybe never. They compared it to climate change. We can’t return to the way things were.

Maybe we will have to live with it , maybe it does have long term effects on a person after they contract it but maybe not in everyone, who knows? There is new information and new studies being done on a daily basis about this illness. Advice/information is changing constantly.
My dc was extremely ill with chicken pox, I had no idea it could make a person that ill ( I didn’t have any knowledge that a vaccine for chicken pox was available and most people here don’t get them done) but lots and lots of children will get chicken pox this year (if their parents don’t get them vaccinated, it’s not part of the vaccine program here) should they keep them at home in a clinical setting forever? The chicken pox virus lives in the nervous system forever and has been known to have longterm effects.
A lot of us will get cancer and now there is a massive backlog and delay in treatment which will result in thousands of deaths worldwide. This last point is an absolute outrage.
Even if everything you say is true what do you want people to do, live in fear at home in a very clinical setting ? I agree that social distancing, masks etc have to be worn but we have to live life as none of us are getting out of here alive. We will all die @ClimbDad.

Maybe we will have to live our lives and risk getting this disease and risk the complications that might come with it as life is full of risks. You are not the only one reading studies on this virus obviously.
There is all the secondary illness and well carnage that this disease is causing does this also concern you? Smears and mammograms delayed for months, operations put off , people afraid to go to their gps, kids isolated in abusive homes, massive increase in domestic violence, mental health crisis , economic downfall leading to mass unemployment and see above again .... and on and on..
So yes , we may very well have to live with it and take the risk of getting it and dying like we take risks with everything else.

@Triangularbubble

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